Students’ Satisfaction as a Competitive Advantage in the Financial Products Market: A Comparative Study

Baňařová Michaela

Abstract:
The main task of today’s banks, in both investigated countries, should be to prefer students’ satisfaction
and strive to offer them what they want. Nowadays, banks own many tools for satisfying
their customers, however, there are still a number of areas where financial organizations could
focus their attention to improve their relationships with students. The next related issue within
the context of students in the banking environment is to gain an insight into student preferences
on choosing a bank or purchasing bank products and services and find out which country provides
more advantageous banking products and services and under what conditions, which type
of marketing communication they prefer, and whether current bank marketing stimulates them
to purchase. In this comparative study, a survey questionnaire was developed which incorporated
the main findings of current literature on this issue. The results of self-administrated on-line
questionnaires from Czech and UK higher education students will be presented in this article,
involving one university from each country. The findings highlight that, while the conditions of
provided student bank accounts are very similar and this type of bank account is very popular
in both countries, the quantitative research found big differences in satisfaction with personal
contact in banks and students’ preferences. It was also confirmed that students in both countries
resist special offers and marketing efforts of banks and in the area of their finances they rather
trust in banking institutions with long-tested quality and reliability of services. The research
also detected that satisfaction with price is significantly affected by paying bank charges among
Czech students and further gaps in the range of banking products and the use of distribution
channels are identified. A series of Fisher´s tests, Pearson´s tests, and Two-sample proportion
tests were conducted to reveal these significant differences in student satisfaction and opportunities
for gaining a greater competitive advantage.
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